Wardrobe DIY | Peplum Blouse

Continuing with my inadvertent “Don’t say no to stripes” campaign, I purchased this oversized shirt from the thrift store, hoping I could belt it for a chic look. But instead of chic, it just looked sloppy. That’s how the blouse become the target of my most recent scissor snipping fest.

I wanted to shrink the top of the blouse, and gather the bottom portion. So, I cut apart the two pieces and used another blouse in my possession to size how to correctly trim the sides of the top. A few snips later, and I ended up with what you see below.

After I sewed darts into the bodice, I tried it on and realized that I cut the bodice too small, so I left one side open and stitched ribbons on the front and back to enclose the side like you might see on a pinafore. Lastly, I hemmed where the sleeves had been removed, and did a loose stitch around the top of the bottom portion so I could gather it to the perimeter length of the top portion. After I stitched the two portions together, it was finished!

It took me about two hours to figure out how to construct this blouse, as I was careful not to make any mistakes. Funny thing is, I still made a mistake, resulting in needing ribbons for the side rather than having room for a zipper. Oh well. I think I really need a dressform that I can tailor to my own size, in order to prevent these mistakes in the future.

Even though I messed up a little bit this time, I’m not going to give up on this style. In fact, I with I had more fabric for the gathered “skirt” portion of the shirt, so I might even hunt for more striped blouses to alter from the plus size section of the thrift store. Oh, the possibilities!

The ribbon on the side is cute but if you wanted another option to fix the oops, you could have put thin panels of a solid-color knit fabric on both sides. This would b a nice solution if you didn’t want to worry about layering, and it adds a little stretch/fit as a bonus.
This really is inspiring to me to make thrift mods!